Timing's good. PPP poll: "For the first time we find more voters (48%) in support of impeaching Trump than there are (41%) opposed to the idea. Only 43% of voters think Trump is actually going to end up serving his full term as President, while 45% think he won't, and 12% aren't sure one way or the other.
"

[....] The critical point is that impeachment for obstruction of justice is ultimately not just a legal question; it’s also a political question, albeit a political question highly inflected by the law and often discussed in the language of the law. The boundaries of the impeachable offense are not coextensive with the boundaries of the criminal law. There are things that are not criminal that are certainly impeachable, and there are crimes that are generally regarded as too trivial to trigger the Constitution’s standard in Article II § 4 of “Treason, Bribery, and other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” The great constitutional scholar Charles Black, in an excellent volume entitled, Impeachment: A Handbook written during the Watergate era, describes this point in vivid detail.

So the real question boils down to this: Does the pattern of conduct that is emerging, in the view of a majority of the House of Representatives and a two-thirds majority of the Senate, constitute an obstruction of justice of a type that is grounds for impeachment and removal?

Maybe it's just that the staff is all in the hospital from being thrown under the wheels of the bus too many times.

Truth be told, I was thinking: maybe has he lawyered up and therefore has been told to stop tweeting or talking on anything vaguely related. As he's been known to obey lawyers. So I checked the twitter feed. His "honor" in welcoming the President dictator of Turkey today, with video, was the last one, 7 hrs. ago.

I listened to the accompanying video from their broadcast. It said while the White House is "pushing back hard", that Spicey and others are busy right now conferring with the president about the correct message and will speak formally tomorrow.

Further on, their White House reporter reported what she knew and she said they are definitely "denying" but that they are "shellshocked" and are confused about what message to send. And they admitted to her that they know they have a credibility problem, that they know they have used up their credibility in the last week with contradictory information.

The reporter and the anchor then discussed how it is important that the White House comes up with the right message before Chuck Schumer and the Democrats start screaming for impeachment.

Well he has clearly changed communication policy. Nothing for the last 21 hours on his twitter now (other than standard-fare promotional pics). He is listening to someone.

I'd keep my eye on Rosenstein. The pressure in public opinion to appoint a special prosecutor is getting intense (over 68% in favor before the Comey memo), the partisan ineffectiveness of the Senate and House investigatinos won't help him avoid that decision.

There is the IG 'investigation which has been explicitly expanded to include the firing and, ironically, in particular the fact that Rosenstein not only truncated and rendered moot that ongoing investigation, but utterly ignored its very existence in his apologia.

I think there is a 30 day notice period for firing the IG, which makes for a tense month for Trump if he goes to Massacre Redux

Huh? I've annoyed the shit out of people for decades repeating "Ve go to cabin vit moose and sqvirrel", especially in Slavic countries. Wasn't until my 20's that I found out Boris Badenough is a play on a real Russian writer Boris Godenov (sp?).

Chaffetz's letter today to FBI sounds quite serious, I recommend reading it. Mentions the NYTimes article specifically, then suggests that if true the president tried to interfere and impede, and tells the Acting Director they must turn over anything and everything to do with communications between the President & Comey by May 24. Here's a scan:

I don;t trust Chaffetz and he will use that memo to obfuscate and blame Comey for not coming forward sooner with this information, then he will inform the rest of us, there is nothing to see here, b/c Comey, Obama, Clinton, emails, and whatever else he can come up with until he moves on to become a fox contributor.

And everyone on teevee is noting that, BUT there is a twist on that, all the White House leakers are talking to their reporters like crazy, basically like hostages sending a "help!" message, see my posts on jollyroger's thread

It's a mystery why they are doing it this way and not just walking out the door and talking publicly, but is is very clear that some are freaking out. We can all say we'd have the guts to do different, still, think of what it really would mean for your personal life to do that until this is history.

I begin to think that it's more than a freak out. It doesn't take this long to get a grip. I suspect there's a furious internal battle about how to respond, maybe with people threatening to resign, that has created some kind of impasse.

A senior official in the Trump administration, who previously worked on the president’s campaign, offered a candid and brief assessment of the fallout from that string of bad press: “I don’t see how Trump isn’t completely fucked.”

“The president has been very clear that the account that was published is not an accurate description,” Spicer told reporters Wednesday. “I’m not going to give any other comment on that.”

Spicer held an eight-minute gaggle on Air Force One as the White House team returned from Connecticut, where Trump had given a commencement speech. He did not directly answer whether Trump supports Comey testifying before Congress.

“The president is confident in the events that he has maintained and he wants the truth in these investigations to get to the bottom of the situation,” Spicer said. “There are two investigations going on in the House and Senate and he wants to get to the bottom of this.”

“Over the course of your life, you will find that things are not always fair. You will find that things happen to you that you do not deserve and that are not always warranted,” Trump said [....]

“You have to put your head down and fight, fight, fight. Never ever, ever give up,” he told the cadets, echoing what he told Liberty University graduates last weekend. “Things will work out just fine.” [....]

“Look at the way I’ve been treated lately,” Trump said, as some in the audience burst into laughter, “especially by the media. No politician in history — and I say this with great surety — has been treated worse or more unfairly.” [....]

Trump implored cadets in his first commencement address to a military service academy to not “let them get you down,” adding that “the critics and the naysayers” shouldn’t hobble their dreams.

“I guess that’s why we won,” Trump continued. He said adversity will make them stronger and urged them not to “give in” or “back down” because nothing, he stressed, has ever come easily [.....]

CNN's White House reporter, giving an update to Anderson Cooper just now, said Kellyanne just cancelled a scheduled prime time appearance on Fox News, and then said that the message of that is clear: they are in the bunker.

I wonder about these Republicans calling for a Democratic prosecutor. It seems like a hedge. If the prosecutor can't find a smoking gun, they'll decry the "partisan witch hunt." And if Trump does go down in flames, they'll try to evade the wrath of his ardent supporters by blaming his prosecution on the Democrats.

While I would like the stated scope to broader, "totally inadequate" is hyperbole. There are three clauses:

The Special Counsel is authorized to conduct the investigation confirmed by then-FBI Director James 8. Comey in testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on March 20, 2017, including:

(i) any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump; and

(ii) any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation; and

(iii) any other matters within the scope of 28 C.F.R. § 600.4(a).

The piece you linked only addresses the first clause. Clause 2, "Any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation," is quite broad and provides Mueller plenty of rope to investigate crimes that he comes across during the investigation. Remember how the Benghazi investigation morphed into scrutiny of Hillary's email server? And clause 3 addresses interference with the investigation. According to 28 C.F.R. § 600.4(a), "The jurisdiction of a Special Counsel shall also include the authority to investigate and prosecute federal crimes committed in the course of, and with intent to interfere with, the Special Counsel's investigation, such as perjury, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, and intimidation of witnesses."

In short, the scope offers Mueller the flexibility to pursue this investigation as far as he wants to take it. The question is how far he wants to take it. I don't know the answer, but he doesn't seem like the kind of guy to ignore crimes based on a fine interpretation of the scope of his jurisdiction.

Finally, even if this appointment isn't perfect, it's still far better than I anticipated, which was no appointment at all.

I think you are probably right. Thanks for the response. I didn't really intend to indicate that I agreed that the scope is too narrow, I had no considered opinion of my own one way or the other about that particular question. Marcy Wheeler has been cited many places including here as a good analyst and so I thought I would just throw her opinion into the mix. I am glad that so many people are happy with the choice of Mueller. Again, I didn't have my own opinion of him when I first heard but I hope he does a thorough job and we get a full report of what he finds.

Lulu, it's a reasonable question and worth asking. While I don't think the Rosenstein's order restricts Mueller, we really don't know where he will take the investigation, and we may not know for a while:

“It was a very sobering briefing,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) added. “As it became clear how little [Rosenstein] was willing to talk about it, it also became clear how broad this investigation Mueller is about to undertake actually is.”

Several lawmakers confirmed to TPM that the FBI’s investigation is now both a criminal and a counterintelligence matter that could include Comey’s firing, Rosenstein’s memo that was used as the basis for that firing, the various scandals of Michael Flynn, and a host of other areas.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) was among those warning that Mueller has no obligation to report anything about his work—even the scope of the inquiry—to Congress or the public, unless it leads to an indictment. “We may not know for months or years,” he told reporters.

The reason she's getting traction is 1) mainstream press is not only is lazy & useless, it sat on the Steele Dossier among other bits for 6 months without figuring out which parts were reportable and showed no appetite for serious unbiased reporting over the last election cycle, and 2) she's occasionally right (batting .200?), dredges up important angles, and is self-avowedly unhinged, unlike say Alex Jones.

Yeah, big shocker, the media is flawed. Journalism often comes down to judgment call--how reliable is the source, is there corroborating evidence, etc. Reporters and editors often judge wrong. Sometimes, they issue corrections.

By contrast, Louise Mensch doesn't seem to exercise any judgment at all. She just throws whatever diabolical Trump allegation she comes across up on her website. When one of her random lobs hits the target, she boasts about her scoop, but for the vast number of outrageous claims that she gets wrong, not a word. She has no accountability to the truth.

People read her for the same reason they read any conspiracy theorist--it feels good. Who doesn't want to see people they fear or hate exposed as treasonous criminals? So go ahead and consume her anti-Trump conspiracy porn for kicks if you want, but don't confuse it with journalism.

My thought is she's getting less whack as time goes on (I didn't put much credence into Putin offing Breitbart, nor did I much care to be honest), though some of the visions of SWAT teams of US Marshalls coming into execute indictments is still a bit too much TV/Ghostbusters/Snakes on a Plane. Nevertheless, I think her sources are pointing to some significant investigative action in the background that was very useful to leak, as we were getting too far into the "Russian collusion is a myth" framing waiting for official disclosures and losing ability to fight back against the illegitimacy of Trump's presidency and the collusion & corruption of those around him.

I still think the idea that Weiner was catfished with a fake minor and had hacked Hillary data placed on his laptop would be fairly believable with campaign tricksters like Roger Stone & Guccifer in the midst, especially with the 8-month lack of charges, though I (& Mensch) may have to eat my credulity if Weiner does plead guilty today as is being announced in all the papers this morning.

Oh great. et tu Dagblog? Is this going to turn into conspiracy-blog territory? Because, I know this comes down to my own laziness, but I like to come here and click on your links and not end up reading some unhinged groundless bullshit. It would be nice if most of the stuff on here has been through some kind of sanity-filter. But I guess we no longer get to have nice things.

Huh? Everything posted here from NY Times to WaPo to Observer to Wolf Blitzer & CNN to Glenn Greenwald to Morning Joe to Consortium to The Guardian to the Atlantic to Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone has the potential to be completely full of shit, and has frequently been proven to be so. Huffington Post's scatter-brained "head of polling" was claiming Hillary had some 90%+ chance the day before the elections and brazenly chastising Nate Silver for being too careful. How's Hillary's Parkinsons and indictment coming along?

And in case you haven't realized, there are a lot of actual conspiracies going on, so saying "conspiracy conspiracy conspiracy" doesn't per se make it right or wrong.

As I've noted before, if you ask people whether 9/11 was a "conspiracy", most will instinctively say "no", even though we know at least 19 US-based Arabs + Osama bin Laden + undoubtedly a number of other participants took part in an actual "conspiracy". And then they'll get mad and all self-justifying when you point out the absurdity But that word's been coopted to mean "crazy unthinking participant in unfounded witch hunts". Notice Donald immediately appealing to the memory of McCarthy and "witch hunt". We set ourselves up to be misled.

Please note that I almost never put up links without discussing them. You can disagree with my logic and the significance of numerous references, but I'm generally trying to avoid being mindless and knee-jerk about blogging, since what's the point? But EmptyWheel's ripped apart conservative takes on security issues - she regularly reviews Congressional hearings & court cases and Administration releases to do exactly this - something the mainstream media does much less frequently. This goes both directions - a lot of FBI & CIA & NSA claims about how they're following the law have been proven doubtful, whereas other claims go the other way.

But nor did anyone here claim that Louise Mensch/Claude wassisname are right as often or as thoughtful & legally experienced as Marcy Wheeler. But we regularly post tons of WaPo & NYTimes links, ignoring the number of times they've been hugely wrong, fooled, missing key data, tools of a cynical press release or an anonymous administration leak.... Those hard-hitting reporters aren't always so impressively hard-hitting.

Note how they dealt with the Schiller Dossier - they immediately jumped to the sensational "golden showers" bit and ignored the validity of many aspects to the admittedly uncertain allegations. Due to this malfeasance, the public was robbed of months of knowing what was in the works, including knowledge of serious investigations of Trump & co. up to election day & after. That bothers me much more than whether Louise Mensch is obviously potty mouthed and oversure of herself - I'm easily able to parse out the showbiz parts of her performance.

Thanks for the very full response. To you her journalistic ethics and competence are on roughly the same level as WaPo and NYT? Someone who gets trashed this badly by a generally anti-trump, progressive paper I find suspect.

​The part about not correcting posts that have been shown to be false raises worries for me. In a BBC interview, she seems unfazed by questions as to the reliability of the claims she makes. Her main argument seems to be that she hasn't yet been proved incontrovertibly to be wrong in some particular claim. So her claims should be taken as saying "here is something that might possibly eventually turn out to be somehow true in some form, I don't know".

But that isn't how they are clearly flagged. And most readers, who get to her claims through some link posted by some acquaintance, won't realize that and will take the claims at face value. And that is how we get wildly wrong belief sets among the citizenry.

Now I say that after reading you, then reading your link, then thinking this sounds crazy, who is this person, then reading that a lot of people I trust say she is insane. So I go look at some interviews and other articles about her claims, and whether they stand up to scrutiny. And now I have to remember WHAT IT IS I HAVE TO FORGET HAVING READ IN THAT INSANE LINK. And this last part is the really annoying part. Because remembering to reject that as totally unfounded is important and hard.

So that took up half an hour. Which is an exhausting way of going about getting and parsing my news. I don't want to have to go through it every time I read something you post. I guess that is my problem and not yours. But I have up til now liked reading your posts, so I thought I would mention it nonetheless. I like to follow people - here and elsewhere - for whom I don't need to triple check the information they think is reliable. They are people that may turn out to be wrong. But Mensch seems like someone who says very interesting things that ... may perhaps turn out to be right. But those possible truths have a tendency to turn into beliefs. We don't have a stable box of interesting possible truths in our heads. Which is why it's important not to link to people like Mensch. But that is just how I lead my life.

I don't know what "better" means in this context. Some of those folks are columnists who don't really do reporting, and whether you find them smart or fair or interesting is beside the point. Mensch is not offering opinions. She purports to present facts but doesn't have an ounce of journalistic integrity. If you want to compare her to MSM, then compare her to the thousands of career journalists and editors who work hard to report the facts and avoid misinformation as best they can. By putting Mensch on the same level with them, you discredit honest journalism and encourage people to believe whatever and whomever they want to believe.

"Better" is a thoroughly considered personal but largely objective evaluation while typing this stream of conscious style list of media personalities in a 2.7 minute tram ride.

Mensch showed an ounce of journalistic integrity by accepting she makes mistakes. We can argue whether she has 2 oz of integriity though. That will be fun, I'm sure.

I'm sure somewhere someone is worried about the reputation of "honest" journalism. Me, I though 67.29% of theprofession was whoring themself to some editor or cause.

But considering the love given to a Hunter S Thompson or Christopher Hitchen as boozing drugged-out icons of abrasive take-no-prisoners journalism - investigative or not - I don't see where this litmus test comes from. I've literally worked with hundreds of journalists, and if more than a handful were like Mensch I'd likely panic, but the profession is as safe as it is conservative.

It's not about accepting that you make mistakes. It's about correcting the record. Journalistic integrity means providing as accurate a record of the facts as you can. Mensch isn't concerned about accuracy--as evidenced by the gross inaccuracy of her reporting and her failure to correct the record. In essence, she's neglectfully if not deliberately spreading falsehood. And frankly, it's hard for me understand why you're defending that.

Funny - an alternate politician can break all the rules to bring on the revolution, including a truckload of haphazard irresponsible half-truthtelling and self-centered rolling over every political precedent possible, but a "citizen journalist"/couch aggregator has to uphold the vetting and record correcting of the NYTimes.

PP I think you should be very careful about sharing anything this Louise Mensch or her twin in Infowars for liberals that Taylor guy. These two are snake oil salesmen, and while the NY Times and the Washington Post are doing the hard work of real journalism, Mensch and her friends are in daily freak out mode on twitter basically trying to twist each turn of the legitimate news into support for their latest conspiracy.

There is really good work being done and none of it is being done by twitter investigators. The only way Trump goes down is with real investigations and facts, it will take some time, but it will be quicker than we think. Remember, Mensch is a better looking Alex Jones, but she is still as crazy, and she has no inside knowledge of anything.

Bullshit on that - false equivalency. Alex Jones is all over the map, now apologizing for pizzagate after a murder and today for a legal case around sexual charges with refugees, elsewhere playing elvis on the moon and terrorists coming to get us etc.

The country's in freakout mode because the administration and the GOP are bizarre and daily astounding us. Nunes' midnight run? Trump meeting with Russians Lavrov and Aslyak (sp?) in the Oval Office the day after firing Comey? Jared's sister pitching real estate-with-visas on an official gov trip to China and removing the press, Trump discussing secret matters about a Syrian bombing with the Japanese PM in front of a crowded banquet at his FL resort?

Mensch isn't responsible for making Truth 2017 bizarre, yet Mensch isnt claiming her Twitter feed is accurate - she's piecing and pasting together docket listings and IP traces and speculation from different quarters, many/most unknown hoping some (20%?) is accurate. I don't think many think of her feed as much more than entertainment, fantasy football except a chance a tidbit here or there might kick the can forward or beat the news cycle.

But it's all about this crooked conspiracy-driven-and-stoking administration anyway. Use it or don't. Enjoy or don't. You folks seem awfully impressed with the state of journalism to ascribe such vaulted expectations. Maybe I should explain what Twitter is vs the starker danger of the background mechanics that ended Dan Rather's career and led us into war - where was our anointed press then? Oh, blindsided. Well done, chaps. So let's play 'kick a blogger' because we've moved on to better stuff. Hey, I get Dan Froomkin's Twitter feed - pretty diluted uninspiring stuff for what started out as a promising career. Etc.

Here's what I think a useful tidbit from Palmer Report, another site I was scolded for referencing, that counter to Pence's denials that he didn't see Cummings letter addressed *only* to him, that there's a receipt and response proving he knew Flynn tainted. Outlandish accusation like pizzagate? Will life stop if not true?

Really, we're all sitting aroung navel-gazing, waiting for the next news blip from the usual pages to eagerly cite, pondering over meanings and discussing likelihoods and significance. What exactly is the big worry about citing something we all agree has questionable accuracy? It's grist for the "what-if" part of the discussion.

I'm curious how people thought Citizen Journalism/crowd sourced news would work in practice - like a perfect cloud version of the newsroom in All the President's Men? I see it as roughly a more chaotic and dodge His Girl Friday, which wasn't too flattering about the news biz to begin with.

I don't need the lecture PP. I hope you've read her latest Alex Jones style bulkshit making the claim that the Supreme Court noticed Trump he's being impeached. That isn't how impeachment works. She's a clown like Trump. Our efforts should be to talk about health care and real issues. If we get sidetracked by loons it won't help us win. But you do you.

Huh? You were lecturing me, I responded. Pretty much all Mensch's assertions are relatively concrete and will be verified or refuted in a matter of days, weeks, or max a few months. That's pretty non-Alex Jones. She regularly refers to various claims as rumors or unverified leads. That makes her pretty un-Alex Jones. Half of what she's doing is putting out requests for others to provide verification or insight - i.e. crowd sourcing. She may be a clown, but she's certainly not a clown like Trump, and the issues she's discussing are real issues, whether we have the answers yet or not. Impeachment is one of the top 3 tasks, not "sidetracked" by any means.

And in case it hasn't sunk in, anything that messes with them is also worthwhile - for too long they've held advantage.

this is also part of enjoyable rumor. Can't stand up, but good to mess with Trump's head either way. https://t.co/0QQ0B1TBXV

The world is laughing at us, Donald Trump tells audiences. Long before he took to the campaign trail, he was obsessed with the notion that the world was laughing at our country, the USA, American leaders. Over 100 times in public statements going back as far as 1987, the Washington Post found. It is another of Trump's "tells." Every time he repeats it, one can't help but feel it is he who fears being laughed at.

ETA - Oh my, now Melissa (aka Shakesville) is being scolded for I suppose Citizen Journalism transgressions - guess it's our new occupation - after 2 years of Donald tweeting every brain fart he had, we've decided to turn the whip on ourselves and self-flagellate, since if you can't beat 'em.... beat yourself!!!

Dunno what your point is, since I'm not a reporter. But my campaign writing, in which I never treated Trump as entertainment, is public. https://t.co/GrZuMaP9Su

[....] Last month, Jared Kushner announced the Administration’s support for the bill in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, writing that the six million Americans in local and federal prisons are included among “the forgotten men and women” that Trump vowed to fight for during his Presidential campaign.. “Get a bill to my desk, and I will sign it,” Trump promised. The House passed the bill this week.

President Trump on Thursday canceled a planned summit next month with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, citing “tremendous anger and open hostility” from the rogue nation in a letter explaining his abrupt decision.

“I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting,” Trump said to Kim in a letter released by the White House on Thursday morning.

The summit had been planned for June 12 in Singapore.

In his letter, Trump held open the possibility that the two leaders could meet at a later date to discuss denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, which Trump has been pushing.

"President Trump’s unprecedented meeting on Monday with the FBI director and deputy attorney general regarding a case in which he is directly involved may turn out to be the defining moment of his presidency and for his party. Bob Bauer at the Lawfare blog writes:

North Korea is threatening to reconsider Kim Jong Un’s participation in a summit with President Trump next month, saying it is up to the United States to decide whether it wants to “meet us at a meeting room or encounter us at nuclear-to-nuclear showdown.”

Stacey Abrams just one the Democratic Gubernatorial race in Georgia by roughly 3:1. She could become the first black and first female Governor of Georgia. It looks like the Republican candidate will be chosen after a runoff election since no one reached 50% of the vote.

Evans argued that Democrats could win by appealing to moderate Republicans. Abrams argued that the party needs to focus on disaffected Democrats. Abrams won. Abrams even won Democrats in northern Georgia with small minority populations.

Kendrick Lamar brought on a white fan onstage to rap along with his song “m.A.A.D. City”. When the fan rapped the song as written, repeating the N-word three times, Lamar halted the performance. He told the fan that she could not use the word. She apologized. He gave her a second chance. She almost rapped the word again, the crowd was not having it. Lamar ushered the fan off stage and continued the performance.

The audience responded negatively to the white fan using the words on stage. She lost the crowd with the first use of the words. Some did point out that she was just rapping the words as written.